A guide to DS9 episode plots

Oh man.
Quark is absolutely backwards: Quark believes he has no dignity and is a heartless profiteer. He turns out he is an empathetic lovable guy with dignity.
- The Grilka episodes show this best. The House of Quark is an honorable one.
  
  Qplah! Glory to the house of Quark! The only one to teach Gowron how to use Microsoft Excel
- Quark: I should've listened to my cousin Gaila. He said to me, "Quark, I've got one word for you...weapons." No one ever went broke selling weapons. But did I take his advice? No. And why not? Because I'm a people person. I like interacting with my customers. Like you and I are doing right now. Talking to each other, getting to know one another...
  Garak: I can see the attraction...for you.
  Quark: But when you're dealing in weapons, buyers aren't interested in casual conversation. They just want their merchandise, no questions asked. It's so impersonal.
  Garak: Your charms would be wasted.
  Quark: Exactly. So now Gaila owns his own moon, and I'm staring into the abyss. And the worst part is, my only hope for salvation is the Federation.
  At least his fortunes seemed to have changed by Lower Decks' time, judging by all the Quark signs everywhere.
  
  Hard for them not to when you’re the former Grand Nagus, step son of the former long time Grand Nagus, and brother of the new Grand Nagus.
  I’m sure Moogy helped him out to once Rom passed a few reforms.
- I haven’t counted, but I have a suspicion that of the main cast, personally Quark kills more Jem’Hader on screen than any other character, except for maybe Worf.
  Seriously. Watch with that in mind. I think Quark might be a low key badass.

- I always love the Watch the Irishman Suffer episodes.
  I would also personally modify the Quark one, because sometimes they show his (repressed) compassionate side.
  
  And sometimes he takes the dignity of everyone else down along with his own.
  
  Yeah he's definitely shown to have a soft spot, it's just that he views it as a moral failing, and not a redeeming characteristic
- It is surprising how much PTSD he has for someone who's just supposed to fix the ship
  
  That's why he's so good at fixing things. He can't fix himself, so he puts all his effort into fixing everything around him instead.

Garak is a simple tailor. He resolves an impossible situation in the least tailorly way possible yet somehow maintains plausible deniability.
- I remember one episode when he is not on drugs, and starts telling truths to everybody. That one explains him.
  
  Well no actually. In that episode he tells Bashir at least three different contradictory stories. Though right before Garrak thinks he's about to die he tells Bashir that he was really ashamed because he fucked over his best friend and we're lead to believe this is the actual final truth. Then you later find out the friend's name he gave Bashir was actually just Garrak's own first name and that every story Garrak told was a likely a complete fabrication. In the end we know nothing more definitive about him or why he's at the station.
  
  His takedown of Ezri articulates exactly how I felt about the character shift in general
  
  Lol not in drugs that took me a second to comprehend but your a totally right.
- the least tailorly way possible
  I don't know, I think he usually finds a way to thread the needle.
- Tbh, Garak is just: Kingsman, but make it star trek.

Jake naively and brashly tries to explore some aspect of himself for personal growth...
- The one thing that I always remember about Jake Sisko was an episode where he was trying to hide something from his dad, and at the end of the episode, dear old dad catches him trying to teach a young Ferengi how to read.
- Jake ended up being my least disliked Star Trek child actor. He wasn't always great, but he is miles above Wesley.
  
  Jake and Nog felt like they were written to be actual teenagers growing up. When they get in over their heads, it is believable. And when they grew up, they became fleshed out characters.
  
  I think I preferred Wesley during Jake’s “Rory Gilmore” years
  
  Jake = Miles/Wesley
- Everyone in-universe feels about Jake the way that everyone out of universe feels about Wesley.

Kai Winn shows up and ruins the episode
- You mean enhances the episode with her peerless villainy.
  
  Kai Winn shows up and ruins ~~the episode~~ everyone's day.
  For us, the audience, the episodes are great. For our lovely characters, not so much.
- Edit: I love that for a brief moment this had a higher count, but the masses being what they are, was soon surpassed. Louise Fletcher was a master at getting people's ire.
  
  This woman won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for playing Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. She's so good at acting you literally dislike her character. She makes you uncomfortable.
- My child, don't stray from the path that the Prophets have laid out for you.

Alternative episode: Sisko believes that he can solve something in the normal, intended way and not a horrible, fucked up way. He solves it with baseball.

Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
—Rule of Acquisition 109
- Quark believes that he has made some profit. He loses it.
  
  Rom: “Well brother, I suppose the real profit was the friends we made along the way.”
  Quark: “What?! No. I’m docking your pay for that.”
  
  I saw that one last night, “The Abandoned”.
- If you don’t need money, then you certainly don’t need mine.

I haven't yet been able to watch DS9 from beginning to end .... I've seen episodes here and there but never saw the entirety.
So my question is
What about these Garrick episodes I keep hearing about?
- From someone who did the same: there is no way to understand what DS9 is about without watching it end to end, it's just designed differently than TNG or TOS or Voyager, which were made for people to catch individual episodes and feel like they watched something. DS9 has intricate plot points that expand over an entire season, and then on into the next. I thought I knew what the show was about, but I was so very very, wonderfully wrong! Instead of it being my least favorite, I see now that it's the deepest of them all, though they all have their individual contributions, especially for the historical time they were released in.
  So my advice is to wait until you have a few hours, then watch all of season 1. You'll be glad you did, and can decide when to find time to continue with season 2.
  Learning about Garak will be infinitely more satisfying that way:-). He is one of the most "interesting" characters on the show, but really when you think about it, they all are.
  
  He is one of the most “interesting” characters on the show, but really when you think about it, they all are.
  To borrow a quote from B5, "No one here is exactly what he appears."
  
  OK FINE I will watch DS9 again, convinced me.
  Friggin Risa strikes again.
  
  Best reply I've ever recieved on the question. Thanks for that.
  There's only two of us in the house and only one of us like watching Star Trek which makes it very hard to find time to watch on my own. We like watching TV and movies together but when your significant other doesn't like what you like, it isn't easy to watch what you want on your own time.
  I think the estimate is that DS9 has 126 hours of content across all episodes ... now I just need to set aside about five days alone and without sleep to be able to watch it all.
  If anything the anticipation of watching the series is very exciting for me.
  Thanks again for the great response!
- Garak? Why, he’s just a simple tailor
  
  There are no Garak episodes. Why would anyone want to watch an episode about a mere tailor
  
  I always loved that ... in an age of replicator technology, instant manufacturing and duplication, automated systems and digital recreations ... no one ever finds it unusual that there is an individual of the species that was a former military opponent posing as an old school clothing merchant on a space station.
  It would be like having a simple humble scientist from 1940s Germany working as a common rocket engineer in the American space program in the 1960s .... weird right?

Yup I have to save this post. I agree with folks about Quark, however I'll add the wrinkle that the things that make Quark grow emotionally only serve too shred his dignity among the Ferengi.

Also occasionally we remember the Marquis exist and have an episode about them. Sisko comes up with basically the same solution as always, but at least it's not the Dominion.

Quark only had that shred of dignity because he planned to sell it to the highest bidder like any good ferengi would.

#1. the gifted child isn't
#2. the ungifted child is
#3. horny physics war
#4. karl marx- the communist manifesto
#5. what if jesus saved palestine?

😢